A Guide To Choose The Best SEO Tools In 2022

Introduction

You need a solid online presence to make it to the first page of the search results. A peep into competitors' insights, the joy of knowing how well your SEO strategies work, and the earnings from your company is what it takes to transition to the next level.

SEO is one of the known skills marketers use to build an online presence, improve website performance, increase traffic and improve the overall business. No doubt it takes longer to master, but once you do it properly, worth it. 

So if you want to perform keyword research, audit your website, do competitive analysis, or just find a way or an SEO strategy to see how well you rank on Google, you need the best SEO tools to achieve them. 

In this post, I reviewed and compared the features, pros and cons, and pricing of some of the best SEO tools like Ahrefs, SE Ranking, SEMRuch, and a few others so that you can win your SEO game this year.

Let’s get to the list.

The best SEO tools for 2022

There are several SEO tool providers in the market. Some offer free SEO tools, although they provide the entire service, and others offer expensive but extensive in-depth research services. Here are various cost and payment models.

Continue reading for a detailed analysis of the best SEO tools for 2022.

1. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is an indispensable tool for all businesses that undertake the SEO needs of their websites. The consultants who provide SEO guidance or generate results for their clients, affiliate marketers as they work on multiple sites and the marketing team of companies that undertake complete SEO compliance for their organizations also find Ahrefs to be a valuable tool.

Key features 

Compared with its competitors, Ahrefs has some unique features that make it stand out among many. They are as follows:

• A keyword tool that provides metrics and data for Google and 10 other Search engines.
• Keyword Explorer offers data for businesses to know if a keyword will work as a target. 
• Provides an analogy of competitor website structure and identifies profitable sections for each country.

Pricing 

Ahrefs doesn't come cheap; it will cost the user $99 monthly. But it is a small price compared to the volume of competitive data it provides to help a business grow.

Product updates 

The Ahrefs September 2022 updates include:

• The release of overview 2.0 in the site explore, which has three filters –

1. Search Volume Toggle
2. Country selector 
3. Changes

• More updates are likely to arrive in the coming months because of new feature additions.
• A new history chart featuring paid traffic estimates that were not previously available is now added.
• Ahrefs has moved its tools to a new URL, and with the removal of limits, Lite plans subscribers can view all 100 keyword positions.

2. SE Ranking

The Cloud-based platform offers 35 services like backlink analysis, keyword research, SEO on-page verification, etc., to help optimize websites to rank higher on SERPs.

Key features

The navigation of the SEO tools is simple as it has all its tools on one dashboard. We have listed the standout features of SE ranking below. 

• The City level tracking feature of SE ranking enables a website to track its ranking within the city.
• SE ranking is one of the most innovative SEO tools that are easy to install.
• Ensures improvisation through frequent reminders to improve website SEO.

Pricing 

SE Ranking allows users a free trial period of 14 days for each of its plans. It provides three pricing plans – Essential ($23.40), Pro ($53.40), and Business ($113.40). The rates in brackets are the starting rates.

Product updates 

In response to the call from users for new and better features, SE Ranking has the following recent updates.

• SE Ranking account in new colour schemes.
• Import Keywords with tags in project settings.
• Multiple line graphs in a single tooltip combination in My competitors, Rankings and Projects.
• Projects have more filters.
• Brand New SERP Analyzer tool.

3. Semrush

SEMrush is a tool suite that provides business entities with marketing insights and ample opportunities to improvise their online visibility. The SEMrush tools are of utmost value to managerial personnel who manage campaigns, manage and market content, and conduct competitive research and analysis by providing them with appropriate keywords and accurate marketing insights.

Key features 

When you think of SEO, SEMrush as a multifunctional tool comes to mind primarily because of its impressive features that solve numerous SEO issues. We have listed the best features here for you:

Domain Overview

• Users see traffic dynamics, both organic and paid, and the number of keywords used graphically. 
• Simultaneous comparison with up to three competing sites. 
• Data for the previous month is available for comparison with other sites in the category.

Traffic Analytics

• The tool provides information for the previous month with an option to track traffic dynamics for 6 months.

Organic Research

• The overall Google traffic a site has received and how it has changed throughout its existence. 
• It enables you to select keywords effectively, generate content ideas, and comprehensively analyze sites' performance.

Pricing 

SEMrush is in the affordable category, available in four plans, and the payment model is monthly or annually, as per the user's selection. Although the annual plan price is slightly steep because the entire payment is at once, it works out more economical (saving about 17%) than the monthly plan. Here are SEMrush pricing options:

Product updates 

Scalenut and SEMrush have collaborated to provide keyword research and topic cluster integration. Scalenut users can quickly access the SEMrush Keyword Researcher and Cluster Booster. Users have access to suggested keywords related to their primary search terms. Trends, search volume, and competition for suggested keywords are always available to users. We have all the details of the additional features below:

• Keyword suggestions linked to their primary search query.
• More information on keyword difficulty and CPC. 
• Search volume, trends, and competition for suggested keywords.     
• Increased Opportunities for CPC keywords.
• Content that is keyword-rich from the start.
• Topic clusters are sorted and rated according to difficulty.

4. Sitechecker

Sitechecker is a website checker tool that provides users with various performance scores for their websites. Users can easily detect problems with meta tags, age response speed, indexation, etc. The website traffic checker is one of its best features that displays website traffic statistics at various times through diverse channels.

Key features  

Sitechecker improves a website's SEO by sending daily, or weekly SEO reports through emails alerting users of drastic changes that could harm them. The advantage to website owners is that they don't have to spend much time on research purposes. Scroll down for more key features of Sitechecker.

Excellent Audit Tool

• An on-page extension for Chrome performs an on-page analysis enabling the audit of competing sites and saving time for the user.     

Website Traffic Checker

• Live statistics on the user's website provide users with more traffic and better analysis opportunities.

Reports to Clients

• The user can download and send reports to their clients or simply have them emailed directly to them.

Pricing 

Sitechecker is an affordable SEO tool for large and medium businesses but may be slightly expensive for small business entities. Also, companies can save up to 20% by investing in Sitechecker's annual plans, which users can cancel anytime.

Product updates 

Here are the most relevant Sitechecker updates for 2022:

• Sitechecker can integrate with Google Analytics 4 and Universal Analytics as it supports both.      
• Users can now monitor the SERP features, previously they could only monitor SERP positions.    
• Special plan subscribers can now crawl about 50,000 URLs. Previously, it was only for 30,000 URLs.    
• Increased accuracy with parallel requests lowered to 4; previously, it was 5.

5. Serpstat

Serpstat is a text analytics tool that facilitates an efficient semantic search by organizing keywords with the same meaning into clusters. The advantage is that businesses can structure the websites depending on the semantic core.

Key features  

Serpstat loads quick and is available free, and works to get a website more visibility to rank higher on the SERP. Check its key features below:

• User can track their own and competitors' ranks daily.
• You only need to click once to get the backlink data right.
• Serpstat's keyword research helps find the perfect keyword from a single URL.

Pricing 

There is a limited trial period offer where the users can test the SEO tools for free. Also, one cannot consider Serpstat expensive for the features it provides. Check Serpstat pricing plans below:

Product updates 

Check out the most significant update in Serpstat for 2022. 

The makers of Serpstat have released six new tools, and users can expect more of those in the days to come. 

The inclusions are: 

• Title Generation 
• Paraphrasing
• Grammar And Spelling
• Article Generation
• Keyword Extraction

The Local SEO section enables you to manage information about your company across dozens of directory sites.

How to choose the best SEO tools 

To adapt to the modifications in the search engine algorithm of today, the best SEO tools for a business will be those that offer a suite of tools to work as crawlers, keyword finders and evaluators, link builders, market research, etc.

Follow the pointers below to find the best SEO tools for your business.

Begin by asking the right question 

Here are some of the question business must ask themselves to choose the right SEO software to raise their SERP rankings:

• What kind of features should the SEO software have to suit my business?
• Will I get all I need as a suite of tools in a package?
• What is my budget for SEO tools?
• Will the reports be customized as per my business needs?

Choose the platform that offers maximum accuracy

Check testimonials and customer reviews to know how well the platform works and how accurately it presents data. 

How good is the website audit?

A business must check the performance of the SEO strategies to recognize what does not work for them and increase the use of SEO techniques that work for them.

Ethical peeping into competitor strategies

The SEO tools must provide data concerning the various strategies that work for the competitors and find means to use similar techniques to rank higher.

The efficiency of the SEO tools in presenting reports

There are three elements that a business must scrutinize –report automation, the extensiveness of the data in the reports and its customization. The best way of checking the feature is by opting for the trial version.

Opt for simplicity

Look for SEO tools that are simple to operate and that both experienced and freshers will find easy to use. Also, check if the software is user-friendly and provides help menus.

Understanding SEO tools

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools crawl web pages to analyze the value of their content for higher rankings on search engines. They provide competitor information concerning backlinks, keywords, and other SEO considerations to help edge your way to the top. Consider the table below to know the uses of SEO tools.

There is no doubt that SEO tools offer innumerable benefits to those who use them to build on analytics to improvise, but they can be the cause of lower ranking if mishandled.

For instance, some websites try to fool search engines by adding too many backlinks for plagiarized or low-quality content.

The search engine will not take much time to uncover such discrepancies and will penalize them by lowering their ranking.

There are four types of SEO Tools. They are as follows:

Why are SEO tools so important for business?

How can a business transform its customers into happy, satisfied, loyal customers who keep returning for more?

A business must use an SEO methodology that many have tried and become successful. However, they must be careful not to use generic techniques. Instead, they must customize them to suit their business needs. That's the formula for a small business to grow and become multinational. And that's precisely why SEO tools become essential to all companies. Scroll down to know the multiple ways in which SEO all-in-one tools become indispensable for a business.  

More visibility, brand awareness and credibility with SEO tools

According to a Zero Limit Web study's CTR results, the first five websites on the first page of the search results get about 67.60% clicks.

In contrast, websites in positions 6 to 10 get only 3.73% of the clicks. The 3.73% are probably those who could not find the information they needed on the first five websites and decided to check the rest out, hoping to find it. We can thus conclude that people believe that the first five results on the SERPs (search engine results page) have the best information, and a high ranking on the search result provides three essential growth elements – Visibility, brand awareness and credibility.

So, how do SEO tools help businesses with that?  

It is hard to cheat the search engine to appear on top. Businesses need valuable content with keywords that their audience is constantly on the search for and valuable backlinks to push up the rankings. Check the Terakeet case study below to know how effective SEO tools are for the online marketing strategy of a business.

Businesses can retain existing customers and gain new ones by understanding their needs

The bounce rates are higher on slow-loading websites. When the website loads slowly, the generally impatient visitors will click to get out of there and move to the following website in the SERP. Right from 2015, the benchmark for website loading time is below 2 seconds; even these have a bounce rate of 9% and rise to 38% if the website takes 5 seconds to load.

Engagements are possible when a website must load fast and provide valuable, comprehensible content; surfing the net becomes a joyful experience for the customer because they understand the website content, and all content displays clearly on their device, even if it is a mobile phone. And a business can achieve all that and more through SEO optimization by using SEO, all-in-one tools.

Check out another case study below to understand the relevance of SEO tools for customer retention and an increase in sales volume.

To sum up

Depending on your resources and business, investing in an SEO tool can improve your ranking and work wonders for your business. Use this article of the top SEO tools for 2022 as a guide to help you with your choice.

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